Waterbury evening Democrat., 1887-12-31
MANS CARElESSNESS.
Fires, Explosions, Collisions and a Host
 of Other Accidents.

Fires, Explosions, Collisions and a Host
 of Other Accidents.
 Scarcely less appalling than the list of elemental casualties is that of the accidents of 1887, that may be attributed almost wholly to the carelesSness of man, the greatest sufferer. The year that is passed will go down in history marked with the shameful record of Chatsworth, Kouts, the Tin Bridge and the Woodstock acci- dents The worst feature of all these ac- cidents was the dreadful car stove. With out this terrible relic of the primitive in railroading in our trains, few, if any, of the more horrible features of these acci- dents would have had to be recorded, and it is gratifying to be able to record the fact that during the past summer many of the best American railroads were very busy at the work of experimenting with steam heating of railroad trains, and this winter not few cars are kept warm with steam supplied direct from the boiler of the locomotive. @t % @
 Not less horrible than the railroad acci- dents of 1887, however, were the theatre disasters, and America may congratulate herself that none of the greatest of these calamities took place on her soil. France and England were the sufferers. The problem of safe theatre building has long been known to be an intricate one, but it would seem that only . few more such appalling catastrophes as the burning of the Opera Comique in Paris and the Theatre Royal in Exeter would be needed to stimulate some ingenious architect to it's complete solution. An accident of 8 quite different sort 1 and more terrible in it's possibilities, for l tunately not realized in this case, was the explosion of escaped naphtha under four ,,,iloc If fho of Poohoc+or and the possibilities in this case will come home to all dwellers in cities, who inves- tigate the amount of inf1ammable material 1 that is carried under their streets and homes and places of doing business JANUARY. Ado.oscM palace, Rome, burned; damage, $1 ,000 00O.-Three hundred killed in & fire at Madras, India.
 1S Schooner Parallel destroyed by explosion of giant powder at the Golden Gate, San Francisco. 1 Panic at Spitalfield's theatre London; seven 1 teen killed. .l.-.. 5. One hundred and forty-four killel by fire l damp explosion in Belgium. 6. Eighty-six killed by explosion of Roburite at l St. Etienne, France. 14 Thirty five killed by railroad accident at the ''tin bridge,'' near Boston, Mass is. Ten burned to death at destructive hotel fire l in Buffalo. 1 B. Forty killed by train falling through bridge 1 at Woodstock, Vt.
 12. Hotel fire in Berlin; $1 00o 900 loss-Fire ip Augusta, Ga.; 0000 loss.
 20. Fire at Chautauqua; $1Oo,ooO loss
 21. Burning of salt works at Warsaw, N. Y. 1 $1OO,OOO loss.
 l 23- Seventy killed by colliery explosion in New l South Wales.-Twelve miners burned to death l by fire in lodging house in Bessemer, Mich. l APRIL. | G. Burning of Massachusetts state printers l establishment at Boston. 12. Many ancient buildings destroyed by fire at ] St. Augustine Fla. .-. ..-
 13. Twenty people drowned in Dieppe, France.
 28 One hundred and fifty drowned by sinking i of steamer Benton off Formosa MAY. ...-- 4. One hundred and fifty men entombed by mine disaster at Vancouver, British Columbia.
 Burning of Harlem blaming mills; $500, 900 lost.
 10. Fire at New Lebanon, N. H.; $250,00 loss
 12. Fire in Paterson, N. J., iron works; $250, ,O00 | loss.
 IA. New York hay market, at Thirty third street, burned; $2OO, ,OO0.-Steamer Empire State 1 burned at Bristol, R. l.; S1O0, 900 loss. 9. Several passengers reported killed by coli sion between White Star steamer Celtic and Brit
 annie.
 25. 200 burned to death in Theatre Comique
 fire, Paris.
 26 Fire in property of Belt Line railroad of
 New York, 1,5oo horses. $500 worth of property
 destroyed.
 2S. Colliery explosion at Glasgow, Scotland; 7s
 lives lost.-Chicago Dressed Beef company lose ! $75O,OOO by fire in Brooklyn. JUNE.
 B A falling building in Berlin injures 300 per
 sons; many killed. 17 Lake steamer Champlain burned on Laks
 Michigan; 19 drowned.-$aOO,0 900 fire in Newark , N.J.
 21. $4oo 900 fire at Leavenworth, Kan. JULY.
 g. 17 people burned to death in theatre fire a . Hurley, Wis.
 16. Metropolitan storage warehouse burned il
 New York; loss, $500,OO0
 21 15 Italian laborers killed on the Erie railroad
 at Hohokus, N J.
 AUGUST
 Great forest fires reported on Franco-Ger ] man frontier.
 g. Forest fires in Michigan. Il. Burning of steamer City of. Montreal.